The whole notion of branding and networking is something too many journalists are scared of, as if it meant to sell your soul. I wrote a lengthy blog about it here, and I got some interesting private responses like “Oh no, I don’t even want to think about this.” It’s too bad!

She wrote twobrilliant posts with a list of resolutions for journalism students, that you must read if you’re still in school (and even if you are not), in which she talks about the importance of self promoting. I wrote about this too, and it worries me that professionals (and especially the younger ones) aren’t taking this seriously.

Reality check: you will hardly be recognized as the CNN, Rolling Stone, Time or Newsweek journalist because you’ll be a freelance most of your career. That is how the market will be working in the future for most of us. So, if you are going to be the manager of your own company (you) you better start thinking how to promote it.

The funny thing is that we do it everyday in real life, in the way we show up for job interviews, the way we connect with teachers, other journalists, or other type of people that may land us a job. Now the goal is to take that online too. I have made more professional connections in the last year just through my blog than in eight years answering to job ads. And the way i’m doing it, people are coming to me!

Alfred Hermida reminds us that this year will be rough everywhere for journalists. He gives the example of Azeem Ahmad, that despite being considered the Birmingham University Student Journalist of the Year hasn’t found a job yet. I helped Azeem out once and i saw how dedicated and bright the guy is, and it’s a shame. But his chance will come.

So follow the advice on these posts, and start building your brand to get noticed.

During ONA, Alfred Hermida took his N95 and asked around to the teachers present at the event about what they have to teach to grad journo students.

Robert Scoble, Rosental Alves – the professor at the Online Journalism workshop i attended last June (yes, i’ll keep on referring to it because it was really damn good)- and others leave their opinion about what journalism students need to learn and to be.

The advice for graduates was that they need journalism plus a new set of skills. The basics of journalism — curiosity, passion, accuracy, serving the public interest — were still important. But journalist students also need to learn about how the digital revolution has changed, and continues to change, the media.

This involves understanding how people are consuming media and how content flows online, as well as being aware of the importance of community and the conversation taking place online. Teaching journalism has become “journalism…plus” as Robert Scoble says below.

Which online tools do you use in your daily work as journalists? Are they enough and the most efficient? Do they allow external collaborations? Can they be used from any computer? And most important even: do they improve and make your work easier?

Old Thinking Permeates Major Journalism School

I sit in Professor Quigley’s class unsure of what to expect. As a member of Generation Y, I am in touch with what my peers find popular — the Internet, iPods, flip-flops, cell phones, etc. — but as a social media maven on the Internet I am an exception to the other 15 students in the class.

“Nowadays it’s essential for journalists to blog,” says Professor Mary Quigley to a class of 16 NYU journalism students. The class is titled “Reporting Gen Y (a.k.a. Quarterlifers),” and it’s one of the few NYU undergrad journalism classes that focuses on new media.

The question might sound strange, since the major doubt about teaching Journalism is if schools are well prepared to graduate the professionals of the future. But are students ready to face Journalism school?

I believe that too many times we start from the idea that the new generations have enough know how to adapt to the web environment, that they are digital literates. Well, i think that’s wrong: i feel that most youngsters old enough to be in college don’t know how to surf the web, use self publishing tools, or simply recognize and explain what is a RSS feed.

Of course i might be wrong, these are my scientifically un-fundamented ideas, based on some experiences i had, and a feeling i got dealing with some people. The teachers that may read this can or will not validate these conclusions thanks to a more closer contact with their students.

The article that set this post talks about Journalism students from the New York University that don’t have blogs, and out of touch curricula and teachers. If on one hand i understand a certain lack of iniciative – i was once young and lazy, now i’m just young – on the other i don’t understand the lack of critical spirit towards the absence of learning contents that regards exaustively online content. In my school, i don’t remember one single time we talked about creating online contents, but that was 10 years ago.

Who should be held accountable for this? The courses headmasters who aren’t aware of the current state of things (though they should become aware of the future state of things), and the students themselves, for not complaining or giving a damn about it. But also to the general teaching system, that doesn´t promote a digital education, alongside with the traditional education- that is bad enough already, in general.

You can say that this whole generation of students uses the web on a daily basis, and that they own accounts in social networks, use IM, etc. Yeah, but in order to become true journalists or communication professionals they have to know more than play online games, post pictures on Facebook, or download music or movies for free, and many times with some difficulties. The abilities that will be demanded from them are hugely superior, there is a body of knowledge that is being created and put in practice by a reduced number of people that will become part of the ground for an entire activity, to which they have to be paying attention.

This is what i ask : is this ill preparation just intentional allofness, or a huge lack notion of reality?

“Well, your doubts are perfectly legitimate, and being passionate about a job helps a lot to become successful in it. The college averages are quite different, but look in student guides for the universities to see which grades are required for journalism courses. In highschool, i don’t have a clue of what subjects you have to take now, but in universities try to find the courses that favour new technologies, and have the best facilities. That will be your first journalistic assignment: look for data over journalism courses, and talk to people about them. I can’t help you more than this in terms of academic field.

The advice i can give you are these, and they’re quite simple:

-improve your grammar: your comment is filled with spelling and grammar mistakes. If everyone starts talking in his own way we won’t be able to understand each other. To work on that, i recommend you to read books, and preferably, try to read more demanding works than the one before. If there’s a concept that you can’t grasp, use your computer, Google is a great tool. And this leads me to the next point.

– develop your knowledge: a journalist must be curious by nature, otherwise he is a bad journalist. He must have the ability to understand why things happen, and the intelligence to foresee the consequences of a certain matter. If you don’t want to learn new things, choose another way to make a living. Nowadays the main issue in journalism is the great divide between those who want to learn and those who want to remain the same.

– respect other people : this might sound stupid, but in journalism you basically have to deal with people . If we don’t respect the person with whom we are talking with, and , above all, the community we want to inform, we are being bad people. And bad journalists.

– start working in a local or a web media company: you must be halfway through highschool, as far as i can tell, but it’s never too early to get in touch with the working reality. Journalism is one of those jobs that you learn while doing it, wich has two favorable points- if you see you don’t like it you are always in time to go do something else, and if you do like it you are already creating a background. You have courses for young journalists and stuff like that at the Youth Press Portugal website. And visit other places connected with journalism, to get to know the available courses, and talk with people you know who are taking them, to find out what they think about those courses. Look on the web for journalism manuals, and online journalism courses because they exist.

– you can create your own blog where yo can present your own news stories of concerts, partis, etc. learn how to use tools like slideshows, video, audio and photo editors. If you don’t have the gear, use your cell phone, it’s good enough for starters.

– read newspapers and magazines, visit news websites, watch tv news: first you realize that there are many differente ways to tell the same story, and then you’ll find which medium fascinates you the most.

– if you’re not humble, forget it: there is always someone that knows a whole lot more than us, and we must learn from them. There are also the other s who stink and will try make our lives difficult, but we all have sometimes to just sit and take it.

– don’t be afraid: we all have doubts, but this job is based on the pretext that we want to know something we don’t know, or that people don’t know but they have to. Asking questions to strangers on a daily basis is a journalists life, so you can’t afford to be shy.

– live a life beyond journalism: this is a absorbing, addictive, cloistering job. But we all need a life beyond work.

Journalism.co.uk posted four articles about the challenges that young journalists will face in the current journalistic setting.

Main ideas: a lot of what you need to know will not be taught at your university; you will have to know how to do everything, because that is what companies expect from you; you have to follow closely the evolution of technology, trends and market.

And another thing: if you do it all well, you’ll be ahead of those in charge, and you’ll have to adapt to two realities – the existing one, and the other imposed by your working conditions.

One of the greatest challenges young journalists face today is holding out for the change – that steady shift from print to web – that many more established journalists fear.

I’ve found that those “established” journalists are generally older and/or less computer literate, and have become quite accustomed to the state of things in print journalism. Because of this, we younger journalists have to take some initiative.

Journalism and newspapers have been moving online for years and we can no longer make the distinction between skills needed for print versus skills needed for broadcast or radio journalism. We need and deserve to be better prepared for the industry we will enter. By providing more integrated courses, allowing students to become proficient in programs from Quark to InDesign to Final Cut, universities could raise the bar and provide their students with better skills, and ultimately, job opportunities.